


the strange act of living

by propinquitous



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Caretaking, Chronic Pain, Comfort Sex, Depression, F/F, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Miscommunication, Post-Monster (The Magicians), Recovery, eliot's love language is acts of service i don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-05-19 18:28:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19362205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous
Summary: Eliot heals.For a moment, Eliot thought that Quentin might lean forward. He hoped for it. But then Quentin only looked at him and smiled, small and sad. He tucked a stray curl behind Eliot's ear and withdrew his hand too quickly."Goodnight," he said.Eliot tried to smile, fighting the ache in his chest. "Night, Q."





	the strange act of living

**Author's Note:**

> "everyone recovers in the apartment like a post-traumatic episode of friends" has been my favorite fic genre after s4. i've elected to completely ignore josh and penny 23 here - with apologies to penny 40 - because i have no energy for the hetero nonsense they bring with them.
> 
> most importantly: thank you to everyone who has stuck around and cried/laughed/screamed through the last couple of months. y'all have kept quentin alive and i'll never be able to adequately express my gratitude.

* * *

_Love doesn't just sit there, like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new._  
  
Ursula K. LeGuin, _The Lathe of Heaven_

  
  
Margo brought Eliot home on a Thursday. 

She led him through the bright lobby, holding onto his arm as they ascended in the elevator. When they arrived at the door, she set about disarming the wards and he watched as she went through the tuts, lost in the grace of her movements. The gestures were complex and difficult to follow in his exhausted state, so he leaned against the wall as he waited, his stomach a little tense with anticipation. He didn't know if anyone expected them and it dawned on him suddenly that he felt almost homesick, that he hoped someone waited for him. Though Margo said that everyone visited while he was still under, she hadn't let them stay, and no one had come by that morning before they left.

The door clicked open and Margo gestured for Eliot to follow. As he took in the high ceilings and clean countertops, he felt a rush of relief; while the gleaming lobby had given him some indication, he hadn't known what to expect. The apartment felt peaceful, he thought, well-lit and quiet but for the distant noise of traffic below. The cool air soothed his feverish skin and he took a deep breath.

The silence was broken by the sound of footsteps clambering down stairs, clumsy and quick. Eliot looked up and then Quentin was there, real and alive and in front of him. His brown eyes were wide and his body looked tense, like he wanted to rush Eliot, to jump into his arms and Eliot was briefly afraid that he would, that Quentin would physically bowl him over with the force of his affection. Instead he stuttered to a halt and then approached Eliot cautiously, wary as a deer. He looked him up and down, his eyes lingering briefly on Eliot's cane.

 _Please_ , Eliot thought, without knowing what he wanted.

Quentin reached out and drew him in, burying his face in the space between Eliot's neck and shoulder. The cane clattered to the floor as he wrapped his arms around Quentin and fought the urge to cry, relief and comfort and love bubbling up inside him until he thought he might drown in it all. 

They held onto each other in silence for a long time. Eliot focused on the feeling of his chest pressed against his own, on the worn-cotton scent of him and the softness of his sweater against his cheek. Quentin's familiarity took root in Eliot's center and distantly he thought, _I don't ever want to leave you again._

Eventually, Quentin pulled away. "I missed you," he said. His voice was raw, like he hadn't spoken in a few days or spent them all crying. Eliot couldn't tell.

Eliot pressed a lingering kiss to Quentin's forehead. "I missed you, too."

That night, Quentin helped Eliot to bed, carrying his cane in one hand and shouldering Eliot's weight as they hobbled together. He sat Eliot down and set his cane next to the bed where he'd be able to reach it, then set to work. He helped him out of his trousers, deftly slipping them down and draping them over a chair; when Eliot's hands proved too shaky to unbutton his shirt, Quentin did that for him, too, gingerly tugging at the sleeves. Once Eliot was down to his underwear, Quentin checked his bandages, his hands careful along the edges.

"I think they're okay," Eliot said.

Quentin looked up. His brow pinched like he might smile or cry, but he said nothing.

After, silence hung heavy in the air. Eliot swallowed around the knot in his throat as Quentin slipped a clean undershirt over his head, ever careful of his injuries as he settled the hem. Part of Eliot felt embarrassed for needing this much help. Mostly, though, he just felt tired. It was difficult to feel ashamed in front of Quentin, who had buried him once.

"Thank you," Eliot said, his voice hoarse. Quentin held his hand, taking his weight off his sutures and staples as he laid back.

Quentin nodded. "Of course." 

For a moment, Eliot thought that Quentin might lean forward. He hoped for it. But then Quentin only looked at him and smiled, small and sad. He tucked a stray curl behind Eliot's ear and withdrew his hand too quickly.

"Goodnight," he said.

Eliot tried to smile, fighting the ache in his chest. "Night, Q."

The days crept by after that. As a group, they established a routine, set schedules for checking Eliot's bandages, reminders to take his antibiotics. Quentin and Margo took turns helping him in and out of the shower until he could manage it on his own, though Quentin often still sat outside the bathroom until Eliot emerged unscathed. Julia bought a whiteboard for their grocery lists and took the lead on getting it done.

It felt almost functional, like they'd always lived this way. It helped Eliot form new habits and slowly, he relearned his body. It felt like he'd aged exponentially, no longer twenty-eight and at his nominal peak, but suddenly far beyond it. His joints creaked all the time, stiff as old hinges. His muscles cramped every morning like they were soaked through with lactic acid. His head ached in a persistent hangover sort of way, dull and throbbing behind his eyes.

Fatigue steeped deep into his bones and he slept through most afternoons, stretched out along the length of the couch or his bed. He needed help getting out of bed, for a while at least, and his legs wobbled on the short walks between his bedroom and the bathroom. His knees clicked when he bent them and his ankles popped every morning; his hands hurt so badly that he could barely hold a mug or a pencil, so much that he'd had to add straws to Julia's whiteboard list.

All of these aches were nothing compared to the wound that stretched wide and deep across his belly, that bled through bandages and scabbed over in yellow and brown. Its magic kept it from healing at anything that could be described a normal pace and he did his best to contend with the way it kept him from moving too abruptly or too often, the risk of tearing it open always on his mind. Every movement sent a sharp pain through his middle but he refused pain meds, too afraid of the rabbit hole and too tired and old-feeling to indulge it. And anyway, he felt a little maudlin. It almost felt good to let his body hurt as badly as everything else. 

Later, he learned that part of his intestine had been removed; when Margo had said _It's gross, I'm sorry_ , he'd almost torn a few sutures laughing.

He grew listless. At first, he felt guilty for being so unable to contribute - resentful that he couldn't stand long enough to sweep or empty the dishwasher, that he couldn't walk down the street for pizza on a Friday. His hands weren't steady enough to cast, and his first and only attempt at leaving the apartment had ended badly: with Eliot exhausted as he sat on the curb, waiting for Quentin and trying not to cry from pain and embarrassment.

In the absence of independence, he did his best to stay self-sufficient in the ways he could. Mostly, it meant cooking for himself. He started small, sticking to salads and pasta for lunch and dinner, oatmeal for breakfast - things he could put together while seated in a bar stool at the stove or counter, that didn't require fine motor skills. It kept him busy and made him feel like less of a burden, which was, he figured, the most he could hope for.

On an evening in May, he sat in a folding chair on the balcony, a small grill in front of him. The days had only just started to warm and Eliot was desperate to take advantage of it, soaking up the last light as evening encroached. The charcoal glowed sunset orange underneath the grate and gave off a faint scent of lighter fluid. Eliot watched as the embers tempered and some of the bricks went gray with ash.

From the small table at his side, he retrieved the steaks, unwrapped their plastic and foam packaging. He watched for another moment until the coals were to his satisfaction, then tossed the steaks onto the grill with practiced carelessness. He inhaled the smell of char and sat back in his chair, clutching a tumbler in both hands. He sipped the two fingers of whiskey that Margo had decreed he was allowed, even after Lipson had advised against it.

_Like you're a Civil War veteran. Just pretend you're missing a limb or two and we'll call it medicinal._

Behind him, the glass door slid open.

"You know that thing is a fire code violation," Quentin said, knocking his toe against the grill's leg.

It pulled at his sutures when Eliot chuckled. He watched Quentin settle into the low camp chair beside him and take out a pack of cigarettes, sighing. He fished two out and Eliot watched as he lit them, the smoldering ends like the coals he'd nurtured. When Quentin passed him one he took it gratefully, his hands steadying and his chest relaxing as he inhaled.

A few moments passed in silence, neither comfortable nor entirely tense. Quentin rarely spoke these days, to him or to anyone else. It worried Eliot. He had never seen him in a depressive episode, but he suspected it looked a lot like this: Quentin silent, barely eating, and spending most of his time reading. It also worsened Eliot's guilt, feeling as he was that he couldn't help, that he didn't even know how. He suspected that Quentin talked to Julia, but he hadn't found the nerve to ask.

"When did you start smoking, by the way?" Eliot asked. With his left hand he reached out and tapped Quentin's wrist, lingering on the soft skin there.

While they didn't talk much, they had fallen into a pattern of small touches since Eliot's first night in the apartment. Quentin held his hand while Margo changed his bandages and when Lipson had to resew a few torn stitches, never complaining when Eliot's grip grew too tight. He helped Eliot shave under his jaw when it proved too difficult for his trembling hands and let his fingers drag a little slowly over Eliot's ribs when he helped him change clothes. Most afternoons, Eliot would lay with his head in Quentin's lap or his feet tucked under his thighs, and Quentin would idly rub his feet or scratch his scalp while he read. Eliot didn't know when their language had changed. It felt both natural and like he had so much to learn, like a child returning to their mother tongue.

Quentin shrugged. He took a long drag and said, "While you were gone."

Eliot watched as Quentin exhaled a plume of smoke. They still hadn't talked about what happened. Margo had filled him in on the important parts: the Library and the hedges, the gods, Quentin's dad. He knew that Quentin had saved him after he'd been able to break through, and he knew that Quentin had been, in Margo's words, the most fucked up of everyone. Even so, he hadn't wanted to ask, didn't want to upset the fragile balance they'd obtained. He wasn't sure he wanted to know, either.

Eliot reached forward to turn the steaks. "Hungry?"

Quentin shrugged again, eyes downcast. He didn't look up as Eliot finished his drink and took the steaks off the grill, kept his eyes on the ground as Eliot stubbed out his cigarette and stood. Eliot opened the door and reached for his cane.

He paused for a moment, looking down at Quentin's profile. Though it must have been his imagination, he thought that Quentin's laugh lines looked deeper, straighter than they ought to be in a way that suggested they hadn't been formed by smiles. His face was drawn and he looked thin and the worst part, the absolute worst part that Eliot was loathe to admit because it made him feel selfish and young and needy, was the silence. It crawled into the cracks between them and grew, its edges pushing up against them; no amount of casual intimacy seemed enough to stop it.

"C'mon, Q," he said. He bent down to kiss the top of his head and stepped inside, a little wave of relief cresting through him when Quentin followed.

-

Kady hugged him the first time she came by. She seemed as surprised as Eliot felt and apologized immediately, pushing him away with such force that he almost dropped his cane and tripped. For an agonizing minute, they stood in the entryway while Kady apologized and Eliot stared at her, half smiling. 

"Thank you?" he said.

"No problem?" Kady’s voice was uncharacteristically unsure but she smiled, all teeth.

Julia swept in and saved them both. She stood on her toes and pulled Kady into a hug and kissed her once on the cheek, then her mouth and Eliot realized that he had suddenly become the audience in the room. He made excuses that neither of them heard and made a swift exit.

Once he was back in the kitchen, he found himself laughing.

"When did that happen?" he asked Margo. She stood at the counter, chopping carrots and broccoli. He felt an irrational pang of jealousy at her fine motor skills and briefly debated trying to take over vegetable duty, but thought better of it. Though his hands had steadied lately, he didn’t trust them with sharp objects quite yet.

"What, the Kady-Julia situation?" she shrugged. "Honestly I don’t really know. I always kind of thought they had a vibe but you know, it’s not like I pay a whole lot of attention to other people." She looked up and met his gaze.

"What?" she laughed, gesturing with the knife in a way that Eliot found both menacing and so thoroughly _Margo_ that he couldn’t help but smile, shaking his head.

He heaved himself up onto a stool and picked up a peeler and a piece of ginger.

"Well, good for them," he said, and set to his clumsy work.

Later, as he watched everyone pile their plates with rice and vegetables, he felt more human than he had in months. He sat in the corner of the couch, his legs extended so that his feet rested on the table. He took small bites of his food and tried to absorb the feeling of an apartment full of his friends, of people that loved him and each other.

"This is actually really good," Quentin said as he sat down beside Eliot.

"Oh?"

"Mhm." Quentin elbowed him gently. A hint of a smile seemed to flit across his face but as soon as Eliot saw it, it was gone. 

Eliot thought about pushing him a little, teasing him like he used to. Instead he let himself settle into the comfort of Quentin’s presence, even as his knees and elbows ached, even as Quentin’s silence sat wedged between them. After a few more bites, he set his plate down so that he could sink into the couch, let it cradle his aching joints. Quentin was warm against him and he wanted so badly to reach out, to ask him what was wrong and try and fix it, to be there for him in the way that Quentin had been there for him over the last few weeks, had always been there. Everything still felt so fragile between them.

Distantly, he tried to imagine a future where something like this was the norm, where he could make dinner for his friends and sit next to Quentin and feel at peace. It was easier than he thought. For the first time, he thought he might stand a chance at happiness and it didn’t make him want to run.

Eliot resolved to talk to Julia, if nothing else to try and find somewhere to start. The promise of life was too tangible to let slip by again.

\- 

A few days after Kady left, Eliot caught Julia alone. They were both early risers and he was glad for the quiet of the house, not just for the space it gave them to talk but for the way it settled him, made him feel calm in a way he hadn’t yet felt in his adult life. He took a few minutes puttering around the kitchen, building up his nerve as he waited for the coffee to finish brewing and as he poured two cups. This early in the day, he didn't quite need his cane, and he just barely managed the trip to the couch without spilling anything.

"Coffee?" he asked. Julia raised an eyebrow at him, not unfriendly, and took the cup.

"Thanks," she said.

Eliot sat down a couple feet away from her and resisted the urge to recline and stretch his legs across her lap. He cradled his own mug carefully in both hands as he settled. Julia watched him in a way that reminded him of how he had once watched her, as though he might break at any moment.

"How are you?" Eliot asked. He aimed for casual and landed somewhere closer to strained and obviously self-interested.

Julia looked at him sidelong. "I'm good," she said, and didn't offer more information. Eliot realized that she was enjoying this, that there was no way she didn't sense his discomfort and anxiety. He took a deep breath and stared into his coffee. The milk hadn't quite settled, instead hanging in white tendrils. Inexplicably, he felt like it was mocking him.

"So uh, you and Kady,"

"Yup."

"That's great."

"Is it?"

"Of course."

And really, Eliot _was_ happy for them. If he was doomed to exist in persistent purgatory with a man he loved who had once loved him but who also, for some reason, wouldn't speak more than six words at a time, he figured someone deserved to be happy. The fact that he was willing to admit any of this felt like a monumental act of personal growth; he had half a mind to tell Julia just that except. Except.

"Can I ask you something?"

"There it is," Julia said and laughed.

"There what is?"

"Listen, Eliot, you've always been more or less nice to me, and Q loves you so I love you, but it's not like we're friends. You don't exactly talk to me," she said. Her smile was rueful, though, and Eliot felt stung. At the time, he thought that trying harder than Margo had been enough, but he knew without having to look back that he had barely cleared the bar.

"I'm sorry," he said lamely. 

She shrugged, her mouth still quirked up to one side. "It's okay - really, it is. What do you need?"

Eliot still felt a little wounded and knew that he'd have to make more of an effort because really, he _wanted_ to be her friend. He wanted more people in his life, more places to put down all the love he carried. For now, though, he forged ahead. He would lose his nerve if he didn't do this now.

Eliot closed his eyes tightly and said, "Has Quentin talked to you?"

"A little." She shrugged and took a longer drink.

"Is he," Eliot said and looked up. "Is he okay?"

"Is that a serious question?" Julia sounded genuinely nonplussed and it made Eliot want to retreat to his bedroom, to hide under the covers until everyone forgot he'd survived.

"No, I know he's not. But I don't know what's wrong." The coffee was warm in his hands but he didn't drink it, instead inhaling the steam. He waited for the warmth to settle into his aching joints. Julia sighed, pulling one leg under herself to turn and face Eliot. 

"Have you asked him?" She held his gaze in the same steady way that Quentin used to, before he'd started avoiding almost all eye contact. Sometimes Eliot forgot that they were so close to siblings.

Eliot shook his head. "He doesn't really talk to me anymore," he said, and saying it out loud was worse than he'd imagined. It felt like admitting failure, like he had lost the one thing he was supposed to understand.

"Well," she said, sipping carefully, "you could start with something about how you love him. That's usually a good in." She wedged one foot under his leg and wiggled her toes. His heart swelled at the subtle affection and he wondered how he had ever been cruel to her.

And he wanted to laugh, too, because he knew there was still so much to say but he couldn't, not yet. Quentin felt too far away, encased in his silence like glass. He worried that too much had gone unsaid for too long, that if he tried now he might shatter their delicate peace. It was too frightening to imagine losing Quentin again.

"I don't," he started to say and paused. He felt out of words, like he'd dropped a bucket into the well and come up empty.

"Look, it's not that I don't want to help you. It's just that Q's feelings aren't mine to discuss." Julia leaned forward and took Eliot's mug from his trembling hand. He frowned but didn't fight it; he hadn't noticed his grip had gone a little slack.

She said, "When we were in high school, when he was hospitalized, his parents asked me all sorts of questions about how he'd been feeling, what he'd been doing. They wanted to help but it was some really private stuff, you know? And I was a kid, so I told them. It felt so fucked up and he was angry with me for months. For _months_ , Eliot. I couldn't do that to him again, even for you."

 _Even for you_. Eliot wondered what exactly Quentin had told her.

She raised her eyebrows over her mug, her face implying a shrug. He knew that she had left him without room to argue and the feeling of defeat settled deeper in his stomach. He scrubbed a hand over his face.

"Fuck."

She smiled and patted his shin, a little condescending, Eliot thought, but not without warmth. "Here's the part where I tell you to put on pants and get your shit together, Waugh."

Eliot did not put on pants. Instead he hid in his bedroom the rest of the day, unwilling to interact with anyone and unable to face Quentin's silence. He knew everyone would have something to say about him smoking inside, even with the window open, but he felt grumpy and a little petulant after talking to Julia; the fact that she was right only made it worse. So he sat stretched out along a window seat, blowing smoke through the screen until night came and it was late enough that he could lie down without feeling like a child put to bed early.

His knees cracked and he almost collapsed when he tried to stand, his joints painfully stiff from so little activity. Every movement sent bolts of pain up his legs and into his chest until it radiated back out into his shoulders, down his fingertips. His relatively lazy day had cost him, he realized, made him stiff and unyielding as an old barn door.

A little desperately, he wished for Quentin as he undressed. He tried to lift his shirt over his head at first but couldn't manage the angle of his arms, then took a deep breath and steepled his fingers, crossing his thumbs. The position was too painful to hold long enough to cast. After several more aborted attempts, he managed to strip. He left his clothes in a pile on the floor and climbed miserably under the covers, every joint aching as he tried to find a comfortable position.

As he lay in bed, he sank under self-pity for his wrecked body and all the things he would never do again.

-

In the days that followed, every opportunity Eliot had to talk to Quentin seemed cut short, interrupted, or else it just didn't quite feel like the right time. He didn't want to push too hard against the fragile glass around him, no matter how desperate he was to break through. The last thing he wanted was to catch Quentin off guard, so he did his best to give him space, ignoring the part of his brain that told him that things would only get harder the longer he waited. Really, it wasn't hard to do so, not when breathing still meant hurting and every simple task involved six more steps than it had before. He had plenty of things to focus on that weren't confronting Quentin about his feelings and anyway, they were _his_ feelings, Eliot reasoned, and he would talk when he was ready.

And so he tried to concentrate on the things he could control. He took his meds, he made himself meals, and tried to rest. Most mornings, he was the first to rise, and he got into the habit of reading for the first time in his life. It was slow going but he found that when he didn't have other distractions, he did actually enjoy it, and often lost himself enough to forget about the pain.

The morning he started his first sci-fi trilogy, Quentin appeared a little after 11, dressed in ratty jeans and a threadbare sweater. 

"Is there still coffee?" he asked.

"No, but I can make you some," Eliot said, craning his neck to look over. Quentin shook his head. Eliot sighed and settled back against the arm of the couch where he lay. He tried to read but found himself listening to the little sounds that Quentin made, the click of the coffee maker as it started, the whine as the steam built up. The fridge groaned as Quentin opened it and Eliot heard him opening drawers, shuffling through plastic bags and containers of leftovers. It was all so overwhelmingly domestic, so quotidian. Eliot could imagine some other universe where this was just Sunday morning.

The tell-tale click of the burner and the drag of a pan over the grate caught his attention and he shoved himself up on his elbows. Quentin's back was to Eliot and he looked painfully hunched, the light falling over his shoulder blades in sharp relief.

"Are you making a depression quesadilla for lunch?" Eliot said.

Quentin turned to him and almost smiled. 

"Breakfast, actually." He turned back to his work on the stove and Eliot sighed.

"No, come on, let me make you something. I know cheese and bread are like, the top two food groups, but you do need vegetables sometimes."

"You don't have to," Quentin said to the stove.

Eliot heaved himself up and walked to the kitchen. He pulled a barstool in between the island and the stove and sat down, facing Quentin. "Compromise," he said, "I'll sit here and do the actual cooking. You're in charge of prep."

Quentin turned to face him and looked like he wanted to argue, his mouth turned down and a little open. Eliot felt something in his stomach flip. He reached forward and brushed Quentin's hair back before he thought about it.

"To be clear," he said, "I'm also hungry and need nutrients other than lactose. Get me the leeks and that thing of spinach, they should be on the bottom right."

Quentin's hands were sure as he washed and cut the leeks and Eliot tried not to feel hurt that he didn't ask for guidance.

Half an hour later, they sat over plates of baked eggs and spinach. Eliot ate slowly, managing to get a whole egg and a few bites of greens down before his stomach threatened to rebel. He turned his attention to Quentin and watched as gingerly, he peeled the soft inside of a slice of bread from the crust.

"What should we do for dinner?" Eliot asked. Quentin looked at him and Eliot didn't expect him to answer, really. Talking to him often felt like a rhetorical exercise, something that Eliot did to keep from the whirling mess of his thoughts and his constant, overwhelming pain. Eliot shrugged, ready to move on, and looked back down at his plate, mustering the energy for another bite.

But then Quentin laughed and Eliot thought he could feel his heart swell behind his ribs, huge and aching. He took in all the little details, the curve of his mouth and the way his eyes scrunched up, the way his Adam's apple bobbed the tiniest bit. For a moment, he didn't dare to say anything, terrified that he might break the spell and bring the silence back over them. He felt Quentin's foot graze against his own and settle beside it.

"What?" he said, smiling, voice quiet and careful.

Quentin tore off another piece of bread. "It's just something my dad always did. We'd be eating breakfast and he'd already be asking about dinner. I know it's part of just, being a parent or whatever, but." He shrugged.

"Well," Eliot said, feeling too pleased at Quentin's speaking in complete sentences. "Just call me daddy."

Quentin laughed again, smaller this time, and Eliot leaned into him, letting his head rest on his shoulder. The pain reared its ugly head, in his gut and in every joint and limb. He slumped a little more against Quentin's shoulder as it took over his body, breathing deeply in a failing attempt to self-soothe.

"You're the worst," Quentin said. "Let's get you back to the couch." Seeming to notice Eliot's pointed gaze, he said, "I'll clean up later."

Satisfied, Eliot let Quentin half-carry him and set him down. Quentin settled against the arm of the couch, laying back. He pressed one hand against Eliot's lower back to steady him, then pulled him carefully backward until his head rested against Quentin's chest and Quentin's legs bracketed his body. He felt Quentin's fingertips drag patterns over his shoulder. It took a moment before he realized they were tuts, that Quentin was casting something small over him.

"What is that?"

"Just something for the pain."

Eliot supposed that pain relief couldn't be too far off a mending spell and felt a surge of pride. While he sensed that Quentin felt resentful of his discipline, Eliot knew that these spells weren't taught at Brakebills. Whatever his feelings, it meant that Quentin was dedicating what little energy he had to improving his abilities, to finding new outlets. That Quentin seemed to have devoted any of it to finding ways to ease Eliot's suffering made him go soft around the edges; he wasn't sure he would ever get used to being cared for.

He exhaled as warmth flowed down his shoulders, reaching up to tap his fingers over Quentin's as they stilled. Magic slipped under his skin, in between his joints, and everything loosened. A slight ache remained underneath, but Quentin's magic soothed the surface, kept it calm enough to take it out of Eliot's immediate attention. He felt himself easing somehow further against Quentin, his body a sure weight against his back.

"Thank you," said Eliot.

Quentin pressed his cheek against Eliot's temple and hugged him one-armed, tight across the chest.

"What were you reading?" Quentin asked. Eliot felt him shift and the battered paperback floated across the top of his vision.

Eliot tried not to be embarrassed; Quentin of all people wouldn't make fun of his sudden fascination with space operas and he knew it. So he told him, and the afternoon passed like so many others had over the last few weeks. Eliot drifted off, slipping in and out of sleep as the sunlight faded from noon-bright into evening. If Quentin was bored, he said nothing, and Eliot didn't know if he slept at all. For the first time since he'd been home, Eliot didn't try to understand where they stood. He let Quentin hold him and felt only gratitude.

-

"So, you and Quentin?" Margo’s voice had a somber quality to it that Eliot still struggled to get used to. Even during their reign, serious conversations had always had a teasing lilt to them, their earnestness always couched in familiarity. Now, she seemed to handle him with kid gloves, a gentle sort of seriousness that Eliot both appreciated and found frustrating, even though he knew they’d both changed.

"Not exactly," Eliot said.

"Why do I feel like I keep walking in on you guys, then?"

Eliot shrugged and dug out a red gummy bear. "I don’t know what’s going on. He barely talks to me but he’s all - cuddly, I guess? I don’t really know how to interpret any of it."

Margo plucked the bag of gummy bears from his hand and fished out a few green ones. She watched him for a moment longer, as though she expected him to say something else. He lifted his shoulders in a quick shrug, raised his eyebrows. _What_?

"What do you want to happen?" she said carefully.

Eliot looked at her and blew out a big breath. "I don’t know."

"El," she handed his candy back to him as if in consolation. In moments like these he resented how well she knew him.

"What am I supposed to do, Margo? He won’t tell me what’s going on and I think he might hate me." Even as Eliot said it, he knew it wasn’t true; he just couldn’t find any other explanation for the distance Quentin kept. He shoved a few more gummies into his mouth.

"He doesn’t hate you, Eliot. Don’t be stupid. Have you even asked him what’s going on?"

Something hot roiled in Eliot’s stomach. He couldn’t make anyone understand that there wasn’t any point, that Quentin just was the way he was right now. It was impossible to describe how it felt to be an open book, all bent spine and dog-eared pages, and sit next to Quentin as he was: shrink-wrapped, inaccessible.

"Why is that everyone’s perfect solution? Why should I have to keep harassing him about his feelings? Why can’t he just fucking talk to me? I mean, for fuck’s sake, I’m the one who got possessed and had my bones broken and killed gods and then, lest we forget, and got fucking _axed_. Why can’t he do some emotional labor or whatever the hell?" While his voice was level, he felt his breathing quickening in a way that suggested he was on his way to yelling.

Margo frowned. She reached out and briefly stroked his cheek. "I’m sorry I gored you."

He laughed before he could stop himself. "No it’s - I’m sorry," he said and took her hand. "To be clear, I don’t blame you for that at all, Bambi, you fucking saved me. I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do. He used to tell me things and now he doesn’t, so." He held out his empty hands. "I don’t know what to do."

"I don’t know what you should do, either. It’s not like I’m the most emotionally advanced person." She laughed, then, and Eliot couldn’t ignore her rueful tone.

"Give yourself more credit," he said.

Margo sighed. "Will you?"

Eliot sat back and despairingly, ate a handful of gummy bears. It was easier not to think as he chewed on the mass of them and he felt suddenly, overwhelmingly stupid. He knew he was a selfish person but even this was pushing the limits of his self-image; between his injuries and his desperation to break through to Quentin, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d asked Margo about herself.

"I love you," he said, tangling their fingers together and bringing her hand to his lips. He kissed each knuckle in turn and inhaled.

"I love you, too, you beautiful idiot. Please figure this out so we can go back to talking about my life again."

"I’ve been that bad, huh?"

"Absolutely," she said, not without affection. He frowned and realized he owed her something, anything at all to show her that he cared, to make her feel as loved as she was and most of all to thank her, not just for saving his entire, actual life but for putting up with his bullshit, for listening to him and always making sure his cane was within reach and for doing all the things that only someone who loved him unconditionally would do.

"What do you want for dinner?"

-

Eliot tried to get into the habit of making breakfast, when he could manage it. Sometimes Quentin helped, and often Margo watched. He tried to alternate between sweet and savory, knowing that Quentin and Julia would always go for pastries while he and Margo preferred eggs and saltier things. Lately, though, he'd been fixating on the idea of muffins, or maybe pound cake. By then it was midsummer and Eliot found himself obsessing over berries; he'd even managed a trip to the market in Union Square, where he'd pored over the arrays of fruit with the careful attention of a nesting bird.

They hadn't managed to stay long before Eliot found himself leaning heavy on his cane. Quentin wouldn't let them take the train back and Eliot had been annoyed to be coddled, but as he'd sat squeezed into the back of a cab, Quentin's leg pressed firmly against his as Julia laughed with the driver, he'd felt good. However briefly, he forgot about the pain, about his injury that was halfway to scar tissue. Then Quentin's hand had settled on his thigh and he forgot about the tenuous distance between them.

His conversation with Julia still hovered in the back of his mind, though Quentin had warmed a little with the weather. While he remained fairly quiet, his touches had become more frequent, more insistent, and even though Eliot didn't need to sleep as much, they still spent most afternoons on the couch, more often than not curled up together. If this was what Quentin needed, he thought, then Eliot would give it to him. By then, he had almost convinced himself that Quentin was snapping out of it and would be back to his old self any day. It didn't seem worth the risk to confront him at this point, not if it might cause a backslide or worse.

"Remember to coat the blueberries in flour before you put them in the mix," Margo said early one morning. She sat perched on a bar stool across from Eliot, watching him work with a supervisory air that he would have found annoying if it were anyone else.

"Since when were you Betty Crocker?" he said, eyes narrowing.

"Since always. Do you have any idea how many bake sales I dominated in middle school?"

"Are bake sales usually a competitive sport?" he smiled and tossed a blueberry at her. Margo only raised one arched brow and popped the berry into her mouth.

Smiling, he shook his head and set about following her instructions, mixing the berries into a bowl of flour before scooping them into the batter. He decided on muffins, then, and dug out the pan from a low shelf. As he stood up, his knees cracked.

"Can I count on your expertise to dish this out?" he said, gesturing at the mix. "I need to sit down."

"I suppose," Margo said and kissed his cheek before gently pushing him toward the couch. "You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just my knees."

Margo cast him a pleading glance.

"You're sure?"

As much as he appreciated her concern, as thankful as he was for her help and care, he couldn't help the way pity annoyed him, made him feel useless and infantile. Pity wasn't like Margo and it only made it all the more obtuse. He took a deep breath. 

"Margo, I'm _fine._ I promise." He winced as he sat down and his knees popped again.

The muffins were cool by the time Quentin came downstairs. Eliot smiled at him as he passed the couch but Quentin barely appeared to register his or Margo's presence, only taking a muffin and going to sit out on the balcony. The door slammed shut but Eliot wasn't sure if Quentin had done it on purpose. Either way, the effect was the same.

Margo looked at Eliot, questioning. Eliot shrugged. An irrational bubble of anger rose up under his lungs and a headache loomed behind his eyes. 

"I'm gonna take a shower," he said.

"Need any help?"

"No, I think I've got it," Eliot said, grabbing his cane. He knew his tone was sour but he didn't care. He'd make it up to Margo later; right now, all he wanted was to be alone.

As he walked away, he spared one last look out onto the balcony. Quentin sat smoking, the discarded muffin wrapper on the table. Bitterly, Eliot thought, _At least he ate the fucking thing._

The bathroom door closed and the water running, Eliot stared at his reflection, the edge of the counter digging into his palms. He observed his eyes, the dark circles underneath. He pulled the skin around his nose taught and stared at the wrinkles that had deepened around his eyes in the last year, the lines across his forehead that reminded him of his father. He bared his teeth and stuck out his tongue and shook his head and tears welled up. He watched his face as they fell silently down his cheeks.

He stepped into the shower in hopes that the hot water would calm him down. And briefly, it did. It soothed the ache in his shoulders, gave him something to focus on as he washed his hair and rinsed the suds from his skin. Through it, he tried to find the root of his anger. There was no reason for Quentin's behavior to upset him as much as it did. Nothing about it had been out of the ordinary by recent standards. Yet he found himself seething, his breath quickening. Everything around him closed in until he felt it in his chest, like all the air in the room had been sucked out. 

A single breath caught in his throat and sent him into a series of violent gasps, collapsing his chest until he thought the pressure underneath his heart might stop it. Unable to breathe, he leaned against the wall, trying to steady himself. In that moment, he hated Quentin, for his silence, for his affection, for every step forward that he met with a giant leap back and Eliot was so tired of trying, of pretending that this holding pattern they were in wasn't wrecking him inside.

It wasn't until he registered the cold of the tile that he realized he'd sunk to the floor, that his cheek was pressed against the glass of the shower door. For a long time, he cried. He cried for the pain he was in, that would dictate the rest of his life; he cried for the wound that wouldn't seem to heal, for the help that he still needed to complete everyday tasks. He cried for the things his body had done when he was trapped in his mind, for the way everyone still sometimes flinched when he walked into a room. He cried for Quentin, who wouldn't talk to him, who wouldn't tell him what was wrong even though it was obvious that so much was, and most of all he cried for Quentin who didn't love him like he'd hoped.

Nothing seemed to matter as he wept, not the cooling water, not the bandages that would need to be completely changed, not the sound of knocking on the door.

"El," Quentin's voice was quiet under the din of the water. "Are you okay?"

Eliot didn't respond. Out of shame, he tried to catch his breath, to stop crying, but he couldn't no matter how many deep breaths he sucked in. He heard the sound of the shower door opening and leaned back. Then the water turned off and Quentin was kneeling beside him. He felt his hand on his shoulder and before he could help it he collapsed against him. Even in his anger, Quentin's arms were a relief.

"Why did you just leave?" he gasped into his chest.

"What?" Quentin's voice sounded far away.

"You came in and you took the food I made and you didn't say anything and you left. You ignored me."

"El, I'm," he felt Quentin's chest expand underneath his cheek. "I'm sorry. Let's get you up, come on."

"No, don't - I don't want your help," Eliot said even as his feet slipped out from under him. He pushed at Quentin's arms and tried to fight but found that a determined Quentin was much stronger than he had ever known.

"I promise we can talk about it," Quentin said, "but right now I need you to stand up with me so I can make sure you didn't tear anything."

Knowing he didn't stand a chance at arguing, Eliot let Quentin guide him across the room until he sat naked and wet on the edge of the tub. Petulant, he stayed silent as Quentin toweled him off, as he kneeled down between his knees and peeled the wet gauze from his stomach. Eliot watched and tried to control his breathing enough so that the rise and fall of his chest didn't interfere with Quentin's careful work.

As he watched, Eliot felt another spike of despair cut through him.

"Is this body even mine anymore?" he asked miserably. Quentin looked up and frowned but remained quiet.

He didn't think about his body much, had always thought of it more as a means to an end than an extension of himself. But now, in the aftermath of all his lost autonomy, of being trapped, he felt desperate to escape it. He didn't recognize what he saw, the new scars and deeper wrinkles and all of the ways in which his body had endured, how his hips and ankles were sharper and his cheeks sunken. A few days previous he'd found a few stray gray hairs near his hairline and while the old him would have panicked in vanity, all he felt was exhaustion.

As the pain started in his knees again, the last place he wanted to be was in his own skin.

"Everything hurts all the time and the things that he did when I wasn't in control - what am I now? I can't do anything I used to do. I can hardly walk, let alone cast. I can't even fucking shower by myself. I don't know what I am." He held out his hands, looked at his palms as though he could imagine them bloody and broken.

Quentin pressed a clean dressing to his wound. He shook his head as he tore the tape and finished his work.

"You're you, El," he said, like that should be enough. Eliot didn't have the energy to fight him. He stood when Quentin tugged at his arms and with shaking hands, pulled on a pair of underwear and a shirt. He stumbled to the bed and sat waiting as Quentin hung up the towels and put the first aid kit away, feeling increasingly stupid as he continued to calm down. He still couldn't make sense of his reaction, of every left turn his brain had led him through.

"You wanna talk?" Quentin said as he sat next to him. The front of his shirt was still damp from where he'd held Eliot up. 

Eliot shook his head and let out a huff of a laugh. His wet hair dripped onto his shoulders and he knew that later he'd regret his cowlicks and wet pillow.

"Can we just. Lie down for a while?" Eliot said. Internally, he knew he should jump at the chance to talk to Quentin, at the fact that Quentin wanted to talk to him at all, but he couldn't, not then, not in this state. His head pounded and his knees were in agony and the idea of having to talk, much less about anything serious, made him want to sleep for a week.

Quentin said, "Okay."

He got up as if to leave and Eliot's heart leapt.

"I mean, will you stay?" Eliot said and didn't care how pathetic he sounded or how angry he still felt because the fact was that he needed Quentin here, needed to not be left alone with his pain and his frustration and more than anything, with himself.

"Please."

After a brief pause, Quentin said, "Of course."

Carefully, Eliot laid back. He closed his eyes against the pain and the still simmering panic, listening to the soft sounds of Quentin undressing; the clink of a belt buckle, the rustle of denim. The bed dipped under his weight as he settled in beside Eliot and before he thought about it, he put out his arms to pull Quentin in.

Quentin moved to rest his head Eliot's shoulder, his fist curled on his chest and they lay in silence, their limbs tangled together. Eliot's mood finally leveled out at the feeling of Quentin's body against his. His heartbeat was slow, his breathing steady and it gave Eliot a rhythm to aim for, a center to find.

"What hurts the most?" Quentin asked after a while. "Right now, I mean."

"My knees. I don't know why."

"Here?" Quentin said. His fingertips ghosted over the top of Eliot's kneecap.

"No, underneath," he said and winced, flexing his leg. Quentin's hand slipped down as he moved and then Eliot registered the distinct rhythm of spellwork. He wondered where Quentin was finding all this, if anyone was helping him. He suspected not.

Warmth wrapped around his knee and the pain immediately eased. Like before, it didn't completely relieve it, but it was stronger than the last time. 

"It works better if I concentrate on one spot."

Eliot nodded and watched as Quentin formed a sigil with his thumb and forefinger before tapping out another rhythm. A cool sensation flooded the spaces between bone and cartilage and made Eliot twitch in discomfort before it eased and left the joint numbed.

Even after he finished the spell, Quentin's hand lingered. He stroked the skin around his knee, his fingers tracing delicately around sides, scratching gently. Eliot felt suddenly self-conscious at the intimacy of it. 

"Why do you keep touching me like this?" Eliot whispered. Even as the words came tumbling out, he wasn't sure what he wanted the answer to be. Nothing made sense anymore.

Quentin pulled back enough to look into Eliot's eyes. He looked wounded, his brow knitted and his mouth curved in an honest frown.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, look at us, Q. What are we doing?" He gestured at their tangled bodies, punctuating it with a movement toward Quentin's hand where it rested on his thigh.

Quentin shrugged and let out a breath against Eliot's neck. It was clear that Quentin wasn't going to give him an answer and he realized that it was now or never, that if he didn't say something that he and Quentin would spend the foreseeable future hovering in this inbetween place, that Quentin would sit in his silence forever, maybe, that they would never get the chance to be everything Eliot hoped they could.

Eliot inhaled deeply and took Quentin's hand.

"I'm sorry things got so shitty, Q. I really - fuck, I don't know. I can tell you're not okay and that you're not telling me. I just don't understand why."

Eliot thought he would feel anxious when this conversation finally came, if it ever did. Instead he felt oddly calm, the usual storm of his insides settled to a flat sea. He was determined, suddenly, to get answers, to move them forward. 

Quentin stared at him and an age passed before he spoke.

"If I can take care of you," he finally said, and Eliot could tell that he was on the verge of tears, his voice choked and wet like he was underwater. "I don't think so hard about my own shit for once." All of his words seemed careful, spoken like they'd undergone inspection before he'd let them out. Eliot could sense their sandpapered edges and wanted desperately for Quentin to speak his mind.

"But if you do that all the time," he said, "you don't ever get better. I'm okay, Q. Don't get me wrong, everything is awful sometimes, but I'm alive and I'm mostly okay." 

Quentin frowned even as he nodded against Eliot's chest. Eliot did his best to give him room to speak but quickly realized that he wouldn't take it. He rushed in to fill the space that Quentin would never take up.

"I need to take care of you, too. Will you please, _please_ tell me what's going on? I don't understand why you won't talk to me but you touch me like," he paused, then, unsure if he should go down the path he was headed. 

But this had always been where they were supposed to be, wasn't it? He had promised Quentin he would be brave - not this Quentin, but Quentin nevertheless. When he said it, he hadn't known when the moment would come, what the sign would be. Now he felt as though he stood at the lip of a canyon, their futures stretched wide and hopeful in front of them, if only he would leap.

"Like we're together. Like you want me."

Quentin looked up at him and opened his mouth as if to speak. Eliot found the strength to step back, to give him space to find his words as he nodded and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. He took a few deep breaths and Eliot rubbed a soothing hand over his arm. 

"I thought that because everything that was happening, that you not being here and maybe, maybe being dead - because that's all what triggered it, that you coming back would fix it."

As Quentin spoke, Eliot thought he could feel his heart breaking in his chest. It cracked in two and flooded his body with an urgent empathy, a need to console and protect Quentin stronger than he'd ever felt.

"But it didn't," Quentin said, "and I feel like shit and so guilty because I had all these, you know, these _plans_ , about what I would say, what I would do to convince you to give us another shot when you were better. Because you, you're the best thing in my life, you're it for me and I - but if that didn't fix it? If you surviving and being here doesn't make me feel better?"

"Q." 

"I don't, I feel like such an idiot, El. Because I want to be better for you and I can't and it's," he closed his eyes and Eliot felt his rattling breath. "I don't deserve you if I can't get it together. If I can't be better on my own."

Eliot pulled Quentin as close as he could. He wanted to feel elated and part of him did, really. Even if Quentin was sick, even if there was still so much work to do, this was more than he could have hoped for. He pressed his lips to Quentin’s hair, not quite a kiss. 

"I don’t think that’s how it works, Q. And you - you have to know."

Quentin looked up at him, frowning. Internally, Eliot shifted gears. A selfish part of him wanted to hear what Quentin had to say, wanted to hear all the things he'd been holding back since Eliot's return. In the long list of his sins, it felt like a minor indulgence.

"Will you tell me now?"

"Tell you what?"

"What did you plan to say? To convince me?" 

Quentin laughed, a wet sound in his throat. He shook his head and sat up, carefully straddling Eliot's hips. Eliot pushed himself up on his elbows to rest against the headboard so that they were almost eye-level. He rested his hands on Quentin's legs and was surprised when Quentin took them in his own.

Quentin shook his hair out of his eyes and cleared his throat, affecting a serious expression that contrasted a little ridiculously with the image of him in his underwear, sitting in Eliot's lap.

"I missed you," he said.

Eliot smiled. "I missed you, too."

Quentin looked at him and while he didn't smile, his dimples creased just enough to suggest it. Eliot felt light at the promise.

"I missed you _so much_ , Eliot. More than I've ever missed anyone in my life. It felt like a part of me was missing. And I know you said that you're not what I'd choose and I'm not what you'd choose, not in this life, but you were wrong about what I want. I already had to face a future without you once and," he took a deep breath and squeezed Eliot's hands. "For the record, this is not going according to plan."

Eliot ran his thumbs over Quentin's knuckles. "You're doing great," he said. He hoped Quentin could hear the way his throat tightened around his words as he fought back tears.

Quentin continued, "What I mean to say is that I think, I think you were bullshitting me, Eliot Waugh. I think you're afraid of being happy and that I make you _really fucking happy_."

Without thinking, Eliot nodded. Quentin's tone had the same earnestness that Eliot knew so well but hadn't heard in ages. It felt like Quentin was making up for his weeks of relative silence by throwing himself into this as wholeheartedly as he used to talk about Fillory, back when it was full of hope and promise.

"And I want to give us a shot. Because I've never felt so much like myself around anyone else. When you're with me, I feel like I can keep going, even when I don't want to."

Eliot's cheeks hurt. He stopped fighting the urge to smile and when he did, a few tears spilled over his cheeks.

"What I'm saying is, you're the person I want with me all the time. And I think you want me there with you. Fuck you for saying you didn't want me before, you lying idiot."

He looked down at Eliot and shrugged, tears in his eyes. "So, that's it."

"Oh yeah, that's _it_?" Eliot said and felt laughter simmering up inside him until it boiled over and he couldn't help it, he felt like the fever he'd been living with for weeks had finally broken, like cool water washed over them both. He tugged at Quentin's hands until he scooted a little closer.

"I realize you're not, um, proposing here, but it kind of feels like you are," Eliot said through his laughter. He ran his fingers over Quentin’s knuckles and tried to think of what to say next. Everything suddenly seemed so clear, so obvious.

"So yes. You're right. I'm a liar and an idiot and I didn't know how to tell you then and I haven’t known how to tell you since, since I got back. I guess I thought, I don’t know, I thought you hated me or something, the way you’ve been acting? It’s been extremely confusing. But yes, you’re right. I lied before."

Above him, Quentin shook his head. Though he smiled, he still looked sad and Eliot supposed that he was due a little regret, a little frustration; Eliot had not made it easy to love him.

He pressed on, "I want you with me all the time. I know we're not the people that lived out whole lives together but I want to try. I want to wake up with you and," he pulled Quentin down then and kissed him, held the back of his neck. It was arrestingly familiar, the way Quentin melted against him, the way he pressed firm against Eliot and yielded in equal measure. Eliot felt himself slipping into another time, another place where the rain beat gently against the cottage windows and Quentin's hands slipped sweat-slick against his back, where they had nothing but time to learn and breathe one another.

"I want to be able to do that whenever I want," Eliot said when he pulled away. The sensation he'd had earlier of standing up on a cliff came rushing back and he knew that whatever he said next would be what Quentin remembered most about this moment for the rest of his life. With almost alarming clarity, he realized what possibilities lay in front of them, clear as Chatwin's Torrent and with just as much potential for healing.

He said, "I want to wake up with you every morning and go to bed with you every night. I want to make you breakfast and fold laundry and have amazing sex and all the things that we did before but here, in this life. With you."

Quentin wiped his cheeks.

"Are you sure?" Quentin said and his voice was so weak that Eliot had the urge to hold him up, to press his hands up against his ribs.

"Of what?"

"Just. About this. About _me_. Is this, am I what you want? Like this?" he said and gestured upward at his tearstained face.

"When is the right time? It's not like I'm in a good way so you tell me, when will we be well enough?"

Quentin frowned and Eliot held his face, tilting his forehead against his own. His voice softer, he said, "It's just, I think that maybe it's not about that. We don't have a whole lot of time, on this planet or any other, honestly. I think we deserve the things we want."

"What if I make you miserable?" Quentin looked as though he might cry again and Eliot had never wanted anything less.

"Don't you get it, Q? I'm miserable without you." He stroked Quentin's cheek with his thumb and pressed a quick kiss to the corner of his mouth. When Quentin tried to move back in and deepen it, he said, "And I seem to recall you just saying that you knew I wanted you and that I was a liar if I said otherwise, so I don't know how you're possibly doubting me right now."

Quentin did laugh then, short and abrupt.

"Okay," he said, and leaned forward again. "Okay."

Eliot met him. 

-

Life got easier. Eliot didn’t need less help but he did learn to lean a little more readily, with a little more grace. Most mornings now, he woke up beside a sleeping Quentin, except for the nights when Quentin's racing thoughts kept him up, pacing the living room and kitchen. If Eliot woke up early enough, he crept out of their bedroom and found him, walking with him until Quentin had to carry him back to bed. Together, they did the best they could.

In the August afternoon heat, Eliot stood behind Quentin, pressing their fingers into the dough together.

"I can’t believe I let you talk me into making bread," Quentin laughed. He tipped his head back against Eliot’s shoulder and kissed his jaw.

"Well, number one, it’s therapeutic," he said, flexing his stiff hands for emphasis. "And number two, have you ever had fresh bread, city boy? This is going to change your life."

"You realize New York has bakeries, right?"

"Doubtful."

While the dough rose, they sat side by side at the counter, reading. Their quiet was comfortable in a way that the weeks worth of silence hadn’t been. Silence felt sharp-edged; it was unapproachable, something brittle and harsh. The quiet, Eliot thought, was gentler, more welcoming. There was no more pressure to fill it in the way he’d felt before, no persistent anxiety about what might be going unsaid.

The timer went off and Quentin stood. Eliot watched as he tipped the mass of it out into an iron pan, careful of the hot edges. His hands were always so sure, Eliot thought, his fingers surprisingly long and deft in a way that belied his compact frame. It made Eliot inexplicably happy to watch him work, self-assured in a way that was almost unfamiliar. This was not the Quentin he’d met all those years ago, who stuttered and stumbled his way through the simplest of spells. This Quentin cast steady magic over Eliot’s aching limbs and unselfconsciously touched the tender places behind Eliot’s ear, the crook of his elbow. It was almost too much to bear.

Once the bread was in the oven, Quentin turned and stared at Eliot, half smiling. He stepped toward Eliot where he sat with outstretched hands.

"What is it?" Eliot asked, a little concerned but light feeling, hopeful. He took one of Quentin's hands and held it cradled in his own. The skin of his palm was soft under Eliot's thumbs.

Quentin smiled and shook his head. He looked down and seemed to watch Eliot's slow movements, as if Eliot's hands might tell him what to do next. 

Eliot took a deep breath. He pulled gently at Quentin's hand. "What’s going on, Q?"

Quentin said, "Just, speaking of therapeutic - I did, I did find a therapist I think I like."

Eliot nodded, a little surprised. While Quentin had mentioned wanting to see someone, he hadn’t made much more than allusions. And Eliot didn’t know how these things worked, how much he should push Quentin or ask. Their relationship, while unquestionably better, closer, still felt fragile. They still had boundaries to suss out, limits to find.

Quentin continued, "But I've opened up the same page three or four times. I fill out the Contact Me page but I never hit send. I just. I've done this so many times, El. I'm so scared. I don't want to have to relive the last few years to a new person. I don't want to find out that more things might be wrong with me." 

Eliot pulled him into a hug. "I think I get that. But I don't think they're going to discover you have some huge issue you didn't have before. You're depressed because you've had depression your whole adult life. Just because some bad things happened doesn't mean you're a whole different person. They just made it harder to live in your brain."

He felt Quentin nod, just barely. He continued, "And I'm really proud of you for trying. I can't imagine what it's like. But you're the bravest person I know."

"I don't know about that," Quentin laughed bitterly. "I've never really asked for help, you know? People always kind of forced me into it. The closest I got was checking myself into the hospital and that was after I realized I was making a plan to kill myself. I've never - I've never tried to get better on my own, really. And I don't, I don't want to die. I promise you, I don't. So it's easier to just. Live it with it. Which is obviously not actually the case, but you know. You convince yourself of all sorts of stupid shit to avoid putting in the effort."

Eliot shivered when Quentin kissed his neck.

"You don't deserve to have to live with it," Eliot said. He pulled back to look into Quentin's eyes. "I mean it. Come on, we've got a few minutes. You wanna fill out the page again and I'll hit send?"

"Not really," Quentin said.

"We can do it, Q. C'mon."

It was, Eliot thought, extremely nice to be the one pushing someone else to sit down for a change. Once Quentin was seated next to him on the couch, he pulled out his phone.

"Okay, what's their name?" he asked.

"Waller something. I literally just googled 'queer therapist' plus our ZIP code and they came up."

Eliot laughed. "Okay, is this the person?" he asked after a few clicks and dead links. Quentin swallowed.

"Yeah."

"Okay, here, fill this out," Eliot said, spinning the phone toward Quentin. "I won't read it, I promise."

Quentin was silent as he typed. It took him all of thirty seconds to complete it and Eliot was a little startled at the speed.

"You can read it if you want," Quentin said as he handed the phone back.

"That’s okay. Ready?" Eliot’s thumb hovered over the submit button. He cast a quick glance at Quentin, who stared at his hands and shook his head.

"No."

"Done."

Quentin leaned against him, sighing. "Why was that so fucking hard?"

"It’s scary, Q. It’s okay." Eliot wrapped an arm around his shoulder and leaned his head against Quentin’s. Now, affection filled up the spaces that Quentin’s silence left behind, pushing through the cracks like dandelions in the sidewalk. Quentin nuzzled Eliot’s neck and the sound of skin on stubble filled his ear; Quentin pressed an open-mouthed kiss to his jaw and the sound of his lips, the soft brush of his hair, was anodyne. 

He turned his head to meet Quentin, to feel the soft give of his lips. He thought he could never get used to this; to being allowed to kiss him, to being able to take his time. Now, he licked slowly into Quentin’s mouth, tasted the faint memory of coffee from an hour ago, the barest hint of tobacco. He pushed his fingers through the long hair at the back of Quentin’s head and wrapped his hand around the fragile curve of his skull. Faintly, he thought he could do this for hours, and he prayed that no one came home as he pulled Quentin into his lap to pass the time.

Eventually, after a hundred more kisses, Quentin sliced into the bread. He buttered a piece and sidled in between Eliot's legs where he sat at the counter.

"Here," Quentin said. Eliot looked down at the bread, thick with butter the color of Easter, then back up at Quentin's eyes. In another life, this was a moment of seduction. He would have taken a slow bite, licked butter obscenely from his finger. He would have fluttered his eyelashes, just a little, and waited for Quentin's mouth to open, all fumbling and awkward. In every other universe, he was sure he'd have the upper hand.

But now, in this timeline, that wasn't Eliot. He couldn't look at love as a competition anymore.

He opened his mouth and bit into the bread, felt the butter smear over his top lip. The crust was too thick to bite through completely and so he bit down as Quentin tugged at it. When they finally separated he smiled and Quentin laughed, perfect in his crows feet and dimples. It occurred to Eliot then that he couldn't remember the last time he'd seen a whole smile from him, the kind so wide that his eyes almost closed. 

"How is it?"

"So fucking good," Eliot said around a mouthful, and meant it. He smiled as Quentin took his own bite and groaned.

"Oh my god," he said.

"Right?" Eliot laughed and wiped butter from the corner of Quentin's mouth with his thumb. The air suddenly felt warm, not unpleasantly so. It was more like Eliot had stepped outside after being in a cold room for too long and felt the sun on his skin, something natural that he'd denied himself. Quentin polished off the slice and rested his hands on Eliot's knees.

"You know, I," Quentin started. In this position, they were almost eye-level and it made Eliot feel small, made him want to curl up against Quentin's chest. 

"You what?" Eliot asked, smiling. He thought this was exactly what love was supposed to feel like: sitting in the kitchen with a boy who had fought for him, over and over again, while the mid-afternoon sun poured in through the windows.

"I'm really thankful for you," Quentin said and it was such a statement of fact that Eliot felt dumbstruck. He cocked his head and licked his lips, unsure of what to say. He thought of a lifetime ago, when Quentin had told him to kneel and expressed such faith in Eliot that he thought he might cry there on the beach, newly crowned and untested and terrified of everything to come. 

Eventually he settled on _Come here_ and drew Quentin into his arms. He would spend the rest of his life trying to find the words, if Quentin would let him.

-

In so many ways, this was familiar. Eliot knew the planes of Quentin's back, the curve of his chin. No amount of magic could erase fifty years of waking up next to him.

It was new, though, in this place, in this life. The bedding was softer, for one; there was air conditioning. Eliot wasn't terrified that they'd solve the puzzle and be whisked away to a life where he and Quentin never happened.

Quentin's fingers pressed against him and he moaned, equal parts thrilled and encouraging. It felt like a millennium since anyone had touched him like this, since he had last been able to enjoy his body and all the things it could do and feel.

"You remember the spell?" Eliot asked.

"How could I forget," Quentin said, a little giggly, and Eliot felt his fingers moving over his skin, felt the gentle pressure as he tentatively pressed into him.

Eliot sighed. It had been too long since anyone had done this for him and he wasn't above admitting that it felt good to be taken care of, especially when "being taken care of" had mostly meant having his bandages changed and needing help up stairs. But this, Quentin propped up on one elbow, framed by his thighs, one hand on his hip while the other worked two fingers inside him - this was a much better version.

Quentin smiled up at him and kissed his leg, open-mouthed and wet.

"Ready?" he asked against his skin as he crooked three fingers and made Eliot moan.

"Yeah," he said. "I'm gonna ride you though," he informed Quentin with an air of imperiousness he thought he'd lost. He felt an old rush of arrogance, of wanting to show Quentin just how good he could make him feel.

Quentin laughed and moved up Eliot's body, keeping his fingers moving at a steady pace.

"Oh yeah?"

Eliot groaned. "Fuck you." He pushed Quentin back as he laughed. "Don’t wipe your hand on the sheets, ingrate."

Eliot winced as he rolled them over and finally, he sat astride Quentin’s hips. He ran his hands up Quentin's chest, letting his fingers tangle in the dark hair, pressing flat palms against his pecs. He spared a moment to bend down and kiss him before reaching back and holding Quentin’s cock steady.

Beneath him, Quentin sighed, his hands tightening on Eliot’s hips. Carefully, he lowered himself an inch before rising back up, repeating the motion until Quentin squirmed.

"I know you’re a brat but do you have to be _such_ a tease," Quentin said. His voice had a desperate edge to it that stirred an insistent heat in Eliot’s belly.

"Mm, yes, I do," Eliot said and finally, finally lowered his hips until he was flush with Quentin’s thighs. He ground his hips a little before pitching forward so that he could rut against Quentin’s stomach as he moved. He'd almost forgotten how good this could feel, to be filled up, to drag his lips and hands and skin against another person. And the _sounds_ , the startled gasps and moans and the way Quentin said his name, skipping over the consonants like a scratched record - it was better, more perfect than Eliot could have ever asked for.

Even so, it wasn’t long before his joints began complaining, his knees clicking almost loud enough that Eliot was worried Quentin would hear.

"Can you," he started to say and felt embarrassed, too young to be making this kind of request.

"What do you need?" Quentin asked. Eliot felt a little bolt of arousal at the care in his voice and the embarrassment intensified, sent a hot flush up his chest.

"My knees," he said. "Can you do that spell?"

Quentin moved his hands from Eliot's thighs and executed the spell, flowing a little shakily through the tuts. The cold took hold and numbed him and Eliot tried to move but found that everything still ached, every connective tissue pulled too thin for the spell to matter enough. Experimentally, he rose up a few more times, tried to focus on the feeling of Quentin hot and deep in him.

And it was good, Eliot couldn't lie. Quentin fucked with a surety and an awkward sort of finesse that surprised him. Still, the pain in his knees was too much. He sat back, Quentin still buried in him, and made a sound somewhere between desperate and despairing.

"I'm sorry," he laughed. "One day, very soon, I swear to God I'm gonna ride you into the sunset but my knees _really_ fucking hurt right now."

Quentin thrust up once, sharp, and smiled when Eliot gasped.

"That's too - that's too good, fucking, quit it. Will you just, you know. Tenderly fuck me while I lie in repose."

"Eliot," Quentin laughed and moaned as he ground his hips down. Eliot thought he would never get enough of his voice, fond and loving and everything he'd ever hoped for. No one else had ever said his name in quite the same way.

"Q, please."

"Okay," Quentin said. "Okay. Yeah, here."

He tapped Eliot's hip and gently rolled them over, keeping one hand at Eliot's back until he lay flat.

Quentin settled between his hips, pulling one leg up so the crook of Eliot's knee rested against his arm. His hair fell in his eyes as he adjusted his grip and lined himself up.

"Is that okay?" 

"Yeah," Eliot said as he felt Quentin's cock pressing against him. "Yeah, please."

It was so much easier to enjoy sex when he didn't have to avoid the pain. As Quentin pressed into him he felt his whole body ease, his muscles relaxing in a way that not even Quentin's spells could manage. It was all in his head, he knew, but he didn't care. Laying on his back while Quentin held his hand and slowly drove into him was the best form of physical therapy he could imagine.

And Quentin. Beautiful, perfect, Q, who couldn’t order a sandwich without sweating and always begged Eliot to make phone calls on his behalf but kept asking _Yeah? Like that? Do you want -_ as Eliot fell apart underneath him.

"Oh God," Eliot gasped as Quentin hit a new angle. "Whatever you do, don't stop that," he said and his voice pitched up on the last syllable, overwhelmed.

Quentin picked up the pace, fucked him a little harder, a little sloppier. Eliot craned his neck until Quentin seemed to get the message and leaned down to kiss him. It was all Eliot needed; the hot press of Quentin's body against him, the wet slide of his mouth and the way he somehow managed to hold himself up on one arm long enough to jerk Eliot off as he dug half-moons into Quentin's back.

Laughter overtook them in the comedown, Quentin's face buried into the sweaty crook of Eliot's neck, their too-long hair sticking to one another's cheeks. Quentin nuzzled him and bit at his collarbone, laughing against his skin.

"You know I fucking love you, right?" Quentin said.

"Yeah," Eliot said and licked an obscene, joyful stripe up Quentin's neck. "I love you, too."

-

Lipson removed Eliot's last sutures on a Monday.

"You're lucky, you know," she said as she washed her hands. "Only a few tears, no infection. And you're alive. I'd call that extraordinarily lucky." Eliot pulled at the skin around his new scar and was surprised that he didn’t have the urge to argue. He had grown so used to the wound that he had forgotten what it felt like to be whole.

He _felt_ lucky.

"Thank you," Quentin said, extending his hand. Eliot smiled his thanks as she packed her equipment and stood up, ready to leave.

"Will you stay for dinner?" Quentin suddenly asked, all earnestness. "As a thank you, for, you know, all these house calls. Eliot’s a great cook."

Lipson looked as taken aback as Eliot felt but, he thought, it might just be the natural curve of her eyebrows. He smiled and shook his head, too relieved at the absence of nylon in his gut to feel any real annoyance.

"Please do," he said, grinning at Quentin. "Kady’s due in, we might as well go big." In that moment, he knew he’d do whatever Quentin asked of him.

"Okay," Lipson said, her voice barely suspicious. "That would be nice, actually."

Later, Eliot couldn’t remember what they made. Instead, he remembered the laughter that filled the room, the way the bright light haloed everyone at the table, made them all a little holy. He would come to reflect on the details, on the way Margo and Kady’s curls tumbled over their shoulders and how Julia kissed spilled wine off of Kady’s hand. More than anything, though, he remembered the way Quentin rested his hand on his thigh, never even lifting it to pass a plate or pour a drink, and how Quentin looked at him, bright-eyed and warm, as he talked throughout the night.

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr](http://propinquitous.tumblr.com)


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